Chapter 44

“Look what I’ve done.” Ellie didn’t scream or cry, she simply looked matter-of-factly down on the body of Olympia Hurst and spoke in an even voice.

Spike knew shock when he saw it. He flipped on his radio and spoke into his collar mike. “This is Devol from Toussaint. Gimme Detective Bonine. Yeah? Where is he? No, you’re right, you don’t have to tell me a thing. How about Frank Wiley?” He said, “Sit down on that bench back there” to Ellie and she backed away slowly until she could do as she’d been told. “Detective Wiley? Frank? Thanks. Spike Devol here. I’m at Rosebank and we’ve got more trouble. Another body. You’ll probably want to bring on the army.”

He peered over the edge of the pool. Cloth had been stuffed in her mouth as a crude gag. Everyone had to be kept away and, much as he wanted to go down and take a closer look, he knew he’d make points by waiting for the Iberia folks and doing nothing to disturb evidence.

At the sound of footsteps on gravel, he spun around to see Wazoo, black garb flapping, speeding toward him. He motioned for her to go back but she kept on coming. Cyrus loped a step or two behind, looking exasperated.

“Something gone wrong,” Wazoo said, and stopped beside Ellie so abruptly she might have had brakes on her shoes. “I felt it, me. I even bring this miserable God man with me and he don’t want to come here nohow.”

“Great,” Spike muttered under his breath. “Wazoo, stay back. Go alert Marc, Bill, Joe, Ozaire, my dad and every other able-bodied man you can reach fast, and tell them not to allow anyone back here, and not to allow anyone to leave the property. Go!”

She went, skimming across the ground as fast as she’d come.

Cyrus got there, gave Ellie a sharp look and bent over the edge of the empty pool. For an instant he bowed his head, then he crossed himself and said, “May I go down there?”

“Not until the Iberia people get here. That’ll be soon.”

“Poor kid,” Cyrus said. “Just a child still tryin’ to grow up.”

Spike intended to do what he wasn’t supposed to do, ask Ellie some questions, but her blank face and empty eyes stopped him. Cyrus went to her and put a hand on her head. She looked up at him and he knelt to rest her head on his shoulder. “Be very quiet,” he said, his voice gentle. “Be peaceful. You aren’t alone here.”

Spike decided he’d better do what he was always threatening to do and get lessons in woman handling from Cyrus one of these days.

On the other hand, what Cyrus did probably came naturally.

“I want to see her,” Ellie said in a loud voice. She ignored Cyrus’s attempt to stop her and joined Spike. “If I had called you last night this wouldn’t have happened.”

“We don’t know that. We don’t know when she died.” From what he saw, he was pretty sure it hadn’t been too long ago but Ellie didn’t need to be told that.

Cyrus came to Ellie’s other side. “Sentinels,” he said. “Odd how one always feels responsible for protecting the dead.”

“I didn’t know what he’d do,” Ellie said. “But I knew it would be terrible. He said I’d know when to come for you, Spike. He cut my neck.” She showed him a small wound under her hair at the back of her neck. “When I turned around I couldn’t see anyone suspicious but I knew I was being told to go—and I thought someone else had probably died.”

Later Ellie would need a lot of help.

Spike heard sirens and they drew closer. Lots of sirens. Wazoo burst from the side of the building again and raced to them. Reb, with Gaston trotting beside her, followed much more slowly.

Wazoo looked down at the carnage and soon Reb arrived to do the same. She shook her head and said, “Why would anyone do that to someone so beautiful and so needy? You’ll have her mother on your hands shortly. She’ll get wind of what’s happened and you won’t be able to stop her.” With great care and ignoring Spike’s protests, she climbed down some steps and onto the pool floor.

Ignoring any protests, Cyrus jumped down and stood beside her. She bent over Olympia’s body and felt for a pulse, then continued going through the pointless routine that was her job to do.

Spike recognized Frank Wiley heading toward him with several pairs of officers. An ambulance bumped over the ground, stopped, and two women pulled a gurney and equipment from the back.

“We won’t be needing that yet,” Spike said. He called to Reb, “Anything to be done? The medics are here.”

She shook her head slowly.

Wazoo paced back and forth, hugging herself and muttering. Each time she passed Ellie, she patted her.

The formerly silent place began to fill with official types, their paraphernalia and their hushed voices. Those hushed tones must be taught during training. It couldn’t be that many of these people felt too much if they’d done the work for long.

Without warning, Wazoo sat on the edge of the pool, covered her face and began to say what sounded like prayers. Spells and incantations, Spike thought, were much more likely.

At a run, Marc came, his elbows pumping, looking in all directions with a horrified expression on his face.

“Reb’s okay,” Spike said. “She’s helping out.”

Marc’s face went from white to red as his circulation kicked in again.

“No one else down there, please,” Frank Wiley said, all business but without Bonine’s snide authority. “We’ll take it from here.”

Wazoo let out a moan. She stumbled to her feet, pointing downward, and visibly shaking.

“Wazoo?” Spike jogged, then ran to reach her. Her body trembled convulsively.

“The book,” she said. “That came from my book.”

He put an arm around her thin shoulders. “Hey, hey, friend, hush now. C’mon and sit with Ellie. She needs you.”

“No.” Wazoo threw off his arm. Her eyes seemed afire. “In her mouth. It’s the bag that book was in.”

She took hold of a handful of his shirt. “It’s the treasure,” she said. “She die for the treasure, her.”

Wazoo wasn’t making much sense.

Ellie approached. Close at Spike’s side, she rested her head on his arm. Joe and Jilly, with Ozaire, watched the scene. More suits showed up.

Wally’s presence didn’t please him. The kid had just appeared but what he’d seen, he’d seen.

Spike gave Wazoo all the time she needed to calm down. There was nowhere he had to go. Charlotte came, and Homer, and he wondered how many cops were out front that they could keep the general public out.

Wazoo turned to him—on him—and with no warning beat his chest and shoulders with her fists. “Listen up, you.” She shrieked and plucked at him. “That in her mouth am the bag what the book was in. The egg book. It in there when it got stole from me.”

He clamped her against him to stop her from doing any real damage and looked at Ellie. “That’s right, isn’t it? The book was in a silk bag.”

She nodded. “Yellow, orange and green. The one in her mouth.”

“With red stars,” Wazoo said, quieting slightly. “And a gold rope to close it.”

“That’s why you wanted the book,” Spike said. “Or why it got your attention. Because of the bag. And because…” The sensation he had must be like getting a sandbag in the gut. “Vivian!”

Wazoo and Ellie stayed with him but he rotated, searching for Vivian. “Where is she?”

“She’s with Bill Green,” Wazoo said. “I seed them talkin’.”

“Concentrate,” he told her. “Think back. You said you heard Ellie talking to someone at the store about the book. Who was it?”

Wazoo shrugged. “Bill.”